CLEVELAND - President-elect Barack Obama has not only made history by becoming the first Black president of the U.S., he is, in a sense repeating history.
Think FDR and JFK.
Our 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933 amid a war and a horrifying economic crisis. Those will be the major problems facing Obama when he takes office in 2009.
Our 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took office in 1961 and brought his young, beautiful and vibrant family with him. Kennedy was just 46 and had two very young children. Obama is 47 with two very young children.
It gets deeper.
FDR served as president for a dozen years (back when that was possible) and has always been cited as one of the greatest Commander-in-Chief's in our history. Kennedy's election was met with a lot of criticism due to the fact that he was Roman-Catholic. Obama's race has been a huge issue as well.
All three men are Democrats.
The cover photo of next week's Time magazine depicts Obama dressed as FDR riding in the back of a 1930's convertible (in a fedora). The pose as well as the composition of the shot is a mimicry of one of FDR's famous photos.
The Obama White House will resemble the Kennedy's in a huge way. There is already parallels to "The Camelot Years" of 1961-63. Of course, JFK's tenure was cut short in Dallas in '63 when he was assassinated and there have been several death threats against the African-American Obama. Let's hope that part of the comparisons doesn't repeat itself.
All in all, Obama faces an enormous uphill battle with the mess he will inherit from the Bush administration. I can only hope that he governs as well as FDR and finishes off his term (or terms) better than JFK.
God be with him.
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